


i wanna be the one (that makes your day)

by heartshapedcandy



Series: RWBY Prompt Fills [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 16:49:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16957821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartshapedcandy/pseuds/heartshapedcandy
Summary: ruby returns to weiss after a three month stint awayorRuby had sighed the last time they spoke—a crackle of static, her voice soft in Weiss’s ears. “There are no good guys in politics, Weiss.” Then, low. “I just want to come home to you.”





	i wanna be the one (that makes your day)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts: when one person’s face is scrunched up, and the other one kisses their lips/nose/forehead * height difference kisses where one person has to bend down and the other is on their tippy toes

She let Yang pick the drinks that night. That was Weiss’s second mistake.

The first was letting Yang choose the bar or, maybe, it was letting Yang drag her out at all. If she had just stayed at home curled up with a glass of wine and a book on pre-Remnant history she wouldn’t be watching Yang leverage herself over the bar, swiping a hand out for the closest handle.

“Yang, _God_ ,” Weiss hisses. She makes a grab for her and manages to snag a belt loop, dragging her back into her stool. “Have some decency. You’re going to get us kicked out.”

Yang tilts toward her, dropping her chin to Weiss’s shoulder. “Oh you’d love that, wouldn’t you sweetheart?”

Weiss levels a glare, trying to look stern through the buzz and sway of the shot Yang had made her take upon entry. Yang digs her chin hard into the bone of Weiss’s shoulder, and Weiss narrows her eyes further, knowing she’s just looking to get a rise.

This close, she can smell the tequila on Yang’s breath. She matched Weiss’s shot with three of her own, back to back to back. Her eyes are half-lidded, pupils blown wide. Weiss can just catch the sheen of her own reflection in the fractured lilac iris, flecked with gold. The bridge of Yang’s nose is painted with an alcohol blush, bleeding flush to her cheeks, and her lips curl in an exaggerated smirk.

“Don’t push it,” Weiss says.

Yang blows a raspberry in her face and Weiss gags. Her breath smells sharp, like tequila and lime, damp against her chin. Yang pulls away to lap a few overlooked granules of salt from the V of her thumb and forefinger, and Weiss finds herself watching with some interest despite herself.

It’s the damned tequila, the steady low ache throbbing in her stomach. It’s that Ruby’s been gone for more than three months now, and that if she squints, if the world filters through an alcohol induced gauze, she can almost mistake the pouty purse of Yang’s mouth for Ruby’s smile.

Yang catches her looking and grins, lecherous. “Don’t get any ideas, Schnee. I’ve got a fiancée around here somewhere.”

“She hasn’t said yes yet, dumbass.”

“Yeah, but she will.” Yang cranes her neck around the bar, frowns. Blake stepped for a cigarette half an hour ago, a bad habit she promises Weiss she’s quitting at least once a week. Yang catches the bartender’s attention, raises two fingers. Leda flips the glass bottle from the counter with ease and pours for a long six seconds—tequila again—fits a lime on the rim, and slides the glasses across the counter to Yang’s waiting hands.

“Two more?” Weiss asks, she lets judgement drip acid from her voice, she knows how much Yang hates it. “Shouldn’t you pace yourself?”

“One more,” Yang says. She hands Weiss a shot glass, drops her a wink. “I’m taking you down with me.”

Weiss can recognize a challenge when she sees one. Narrows her eyes. She licks a long stripe down the back of her hand, Yang does the same and sprinkles a liberal helping of salt on the damp skin.

She drags her tongue through the granules, holding the grit at the front of her mouth as they throw the shots back. Weiss winces through the burn, smothers the roil of her stomach with a tart bite of lime.

A voice behind them: “I leave for two seconds and you all get more shots without me?”

Yang turns, crows victoriously. “There’s my fiancé!”

Blake leans down, amused, drops a kiss on Yang’s cheek and murmurs while she’s there, “We’re not engaged, baby.”

With her comes the bitter cold from outside, clinging to her skin, her jacket, mingling with the stench of cigarette smoke, the numb-rush buzz of nicotine that’s dimming her aura in waves. She tosses her dark hair over one shoulder, pulling her knit beanie off her head, ears flicking at the sudden assault of sound before settling, tilting back into her hair.

Yang brings a hand to her face, taps exaggeratedly at her chin. “I haven’t done that yet?”

“Not yet.”

Yang catches her around the waist and drags Blake into her lap. Blake hums a noise of surprise and throws her arms around Yang’s neck, burying her face in Yang’s neck. The overtly public displays are the first sign that she’s tipsy, her unintelligible purrs as she nuzzles against Yang’s ears the second.

Yang turns her face to catch Blake’s mouth in a kiss. “Mwah,” she says, overloud, pulling away with a smack. Then, a grimace. “You taste like an ashtray, kitty.”

That Blake lets the pet name slide is the third.

“When you gonna ask?” she mumbles, just loud enough for Weiss to hear.

“When you aren’t expectin’ it, love.”

Weiss pulls a face, distracting herself with the going-ons of the bar instead. It’s a dive that Yang keeps insisting is _up and coming_ , and even Weiss has to admit there’s a certain charm. It’s stylized in dark wood and torn vinyl booths, spindly metal bar stools and open industrial ceilings. Tendrils of fairy lights ring the doorway, and neon signs illuminate the space in harsh abstractions, washing them in watery off-pink light.

There’s a novelette of initials carved into the bars, the _so and so + so and so_ of old lovers, and occasional _I-was-here_ declarations. Frail human attempts at cementing themselves into a fading narrative. Ephemeral, fleeting. Weiss traces a carved heart, the names of a couple etched inside, and grimaces. That kind of optimism makes her sick.

“Uh-oh.” Blake’s voice interrupts her thoughts. “Someone get Weiss another drink, she looks mopey.”

Weiss answers in a snarl. “Sorry I didn’t want to watch you exploring the back of Yang’s throat with your tongue.”

Blake regards her, placid, before turning to Yang. “Make that two drinks.”

Yang ducks in, kisses her nose. “I like the way you think.” She starts to turn to the bartender before pausing, carefully scooping Blake off her lap and nudging her toward Weiss. “Give Ice Princess some love. She’s just mopey because Ruby’s still gone.”

Blake reaches out, circles Weiss’s wrist with two fingers. Her arm is slim enough that she can wrap her hand around it easily, and she tugs Weiss in a little closer, until she can smell her shampoo underneath the bitter clove of cigarettes.

“She’ll be back soon, Weiss.” Blake dips her voice, genuine, lips twisting to the side. “I promise.”

Weiss sniffs. “Whatever.” Blake narrows her eyes and Weiss rescinds her attitude. “It’s just that she’s not usually gone this long.” She turns to Yang craning her neck. “You sure you haven’t heard anything?”

Yang’s flagged down a bartender and is supervising the mixing of three tequila sunrises. She snags them with a wink, answers without looking up. “No Weiss, I haven’t heard anything from your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” Weiss hopes her own uncertainty on the matter doesn’t creep into her voice.

Yang snorts. “Yeah okay. Tell that to the image burned into my retinas of walking in on you two at the Spring Festival.”

Weiss can feel her face getting hot, a flush spreading across her chest. “That’s not—”

“Or that one time in Menagerie—”

“I don’t think that’s—”

“In the forge—”

“Okay!” Weiss snaps, voice sharp, and Yang clamps her jaw, hiding a smile. “I take your point.”

Yang sets the drinks on the counter, bringing her own to her lips. She winces. “Lee made ‘em strong.”

Blake drops Weiss’s hand to take her own glass, pouts a lower lip. “Your flirting probably helped.”

Yang fits a hand at Blake’s waist, trails her fingertips under the hem of her jacket, her shirt. Weiss can tell when Yang hits skin because they both shiver. Yang moves in to nip a kiss at Blake’s bottom lip, takes her hand to her mouth and licks away the condensation from her glass.

“You’ll know when I’m flirting, babe.”

Blake smiles despite herself, hides her mouth in the rim of her highball. “You’re insufferable.”

“It’s one of my many charms.”

Weiss turns away again to distract herself in her drink. It _is_ strong, the tequila nearly drowning the orange juice and grenadine altogether, and she has to force herself to swallow. The second sip is easier. She is well and truly buzzed now, and her thoughts have narrowed nearly exclusively to Ruby, wherever she is.

Weiss checks her scroll and sighs. No messages. When Ruby left it was supposed to be a simple security job, but it turned into a three-month-long personal surveillance detail, the commission dragging as the election in Atlas grew more and more contentious.

They haven’t talked on the scroll in almost a week, and she could hear the exhaustion in Ruby’s voice when they did. Ruby had sighed the last time they spoke—a crackle of static, her voice soft in Weiss’s ears. “There are no good guys in politics, Weiss.” Then, low. “I just want to come home to you.”

Weiss pinches the bridge of her nose and buries her mouth in a long, slow sip of her drink. A gust of cold air blows into the bar as someone opens the door, and she shivers. Weiss notices footsteps approaching, then the stench of cologne, the back of her neck prickling.

She feels the bulk of a body lean against the bar next to her. It’s a man, Atlesian judging by the cut of his suit jacket, pomade slick and toothy. He pins her with a chest to chin cut of his eyes, leans forward with an exhale of stale, ale drenched breath.

“This seat taken, sugar?”

Weiss turns back to her drink, wrinkling her nose against the smell, shrinking her elbows in close to her chest. She ignores him. Beside her Yang bristles, half-rising from her seat, about to step in. Before she can, in a flurry of rose petals, a hand clamps down on the man’s shoulder. It’s not hard enough to hurt, but the tightening of the tendons below the knuckles signals a warning.

“Yeah, it is.”

Weiss startles, her heart leaps to her throat, and she nearly upsets her drink as she whips her head back to face the stranger.

There, lit in the flush, rosy glow of the bar, is Ruby. She squeezes the man’s shoulder and smiles, big. He turns, as if to argue, but shrinks out from under her hold after spotting Crescent Rose slung over her back, stumbling away with a slurred apology. Ruby’s smile grows into an angular, dimpled grin. She catches Weiss’s eyes, waggles her fingers in a wave.

“Hey, Weiss.”

Weiss stays frozen in her seat, jaw ajar. All the alcohol rushes to her head at once and she reels, her skin prickling with heat, fingertips buzzing. Ruby’s hair is longer. It’s well past her shoulders now, a mess of tangled waves, brushed back over her forehead carelessly, a lock falling into her eyes. There’s a new scar, raw and raised, licking down her jaw. Her left arm is in a sling, bruises bleeding up her shoulder in a bloom of dusky purple. She looks like she just tumbled off of an airship, clothes travel-rumpled and dusty. The lines around her eyes cinch and wrinkle as she smiles, and she tilts her free shoulder up, an apology.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Weiss remembers, all at once, that she’s meant to be angry with Ruby. She hasn’t called or messaged in _days_ , for all Weiss knew she was lying dead in a ditch somewhere. For all Weiss knew she was a continent away with no intention of coming home. Weiss narrows her eyes and turns back to her drink. She swallows the rest of it in three gulps, pressing her palm flat to her chest to keep it down. The syrup settles sweet at the back of her tongue, but she can feel tequila burn all the way down her throat.

Beside them, Yang’s settles in like she’s front row at the theater. Blake folds herself into Yang’s side, ever weary.

Standing off the bar, Ruby starts to fidget. She looks ridiculous, twiddling her thumbs like a teenager, all slim, muscled shoulders and a sheepish grin.

“Did you miss me?” Ruby’s voice is small, smile dimming a few watts.

Weiss spins to face her on the stool, crossing her legs primly at the knee, adjusting her skirt across her thighs. She can feel the weight of Ruby’s eyes on her, and the attention makes her stomach throb despite herself.

Weiss steels herself into a frosty indifference, lip curling, but her heart beat is accelerating fast, a frantic staccato flutter. It’s just that—Ruby’s wearing those boots Weiss loves, the ones with the heel, calf-high, soft buttery leather. The sleeves of her white blouse are torn, muddied, but she’s wearing her corset, loosely-laced, her gauntlets bracing her forearms. She looks like a hero and _God_ Weiss wants to hate it.

“Funny that you found us,” Weiss says, voice sharp, rapier thin. “Seeing as you couldn’t find the time to call.”

Ruby rubs at the back of her neck, sheepish. “Yang messaged me.”

Weiss turns to Yang and glares. Yang stands, hands help up in surrender. “It wasn’t a sure thing. I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

Blake’s ears twitch. “Babe, let’s leave this fight to the professionals.” She moves forward to pull Ruby into a quick embrace. “I missed you.”

Ruby smacks a kiss on Blake’s cheek and lets Yang wrestle her into a hug. They scuffle for a few seconds, looking more like children in a schoolyard than seasoned huntresses with a decade of field time under their respective ammo belts. Yang catches Ruby in a headlock, musses her hair even further. She releases her as Weiss’s glare sharpens, scrunching her nose apologetically.

“Sorry, sis,” Yang says, beginning to follow Blake to the other side of the bar. “You’re on your own in this one.”

Ruby turns back to face Weiss, weathers a step forward. “I meant to call sooner.” Another step. “Things have been hectic and thought I’d be kept on longer, but the Atlas team relieved me after—” She finishes her sentence by tapping her injured arm, sling-ridden.

Weiss pinches the corners of her mouth, swallowing a wave of concern. “What happened?”

“Tensions were high in the surrounding localities, they have a lot to lose if their incumbent does, and—” she shrugs, forgetting herself, and winces at the twinge in her shoulder. “The Grimm attacks were overwhelming, I got injured in the last raid.” She flexes the hand on her battered arm. “Nothing terrible, but my aura was low. I took the hit.”

Weiss fixes her face into a careful mask, raises her chin. “You should have been more careful.”

Ruby shuffles closer still. “I know.”

Weiss finds herself softening as Ruby moves in enough to brush her knuckles along the bare skin of her knee. “I worry about you.”

“I know.”

Ruby flattens a broad palm over Weiss’s thigh, stroking a slow circle with her thumb. Weiss sucks in a startled breath, her nerve endings sparking.

It’s been so long that Ruby’s touch burns right through her.

When she speaks, her voice is strained. “You scared us all half to death.”

“I know,” Ruby says again, her voice is tilted low, that soft-calm she uses when she’s trying to keep Weiss from snapping. “But are you going to keep treating me like a stranger or are you going to let me kiss you?”

It sounds enough like a challenge that Weiss bristles. “You might as well be a stranger.” She brushes Ruby’s hand off of her leg and spins back to face the bar, tossing her words over her shoulder. “It’s been so long I hardly recognize you.”

Behind her, she hears Ruby laugh. Weiss smothers a smile against her palm, propping her elbows on the scarred wood of the counter. Ruby tosses her pack down on the ground beneath the bar, props Crescent Rose beside it. She sidles up to the stool, leans into Weiss’s space until her peripheral blurs with Ruby’s slanted grin, the smell of discharged gunpowder, the sweet lotus lotion Ruby favors.

“In that case—this seat taken, sugar?”

This time, Weiss can’t cover her smile and she turns her head to hide it instead, gesturing at the bartender with a flash of her hand. “Leda, one of your patrons is bothering me, could you escort her out.”

Leda turns and Ruby raises her hand to her forehead in a mock salute. “Hey, Lee.”

Leda grins, tossing a bar rag over her shoulder. “Sorry, Ms. Schnee, I couldn’t wrestle this one out if I tried.”

Ruby leans around Weiss, setting a hand on the small of her back to keep her steady. “While we have your attention, could I get two drinks for me and the lady?”

Leda winks. “You bet.”

Weiss turns to face her, finds her face close. They’re nose to nose now and she keeps her breath steady, trying to channel her annoyance, though it’s fading fast. “Are you trying to bribe me, Ruby Rose?”

Ruby tilts closer until Weiss can feel the warmth of her breath on her cheek, until she’s drowning in the gunmetal sheen of Ruby’s eyes. “Something like that.”

Weiss frowns, clenches her teeth. “It’s not going to work.”

Ruby leans in, brushes her lips over the furrows of Weiss’s brow, smoothing a kiss across the tense muscles of Weiss’s jaw. “You sure?”

Weiss scrunches her nose and Ruby kisses that, too.

Weiss blinks up at her. “How forward of you.”

Instinctually, she proffers her cheek for another kiss and Ruby complies, a long press of mouth to cheek, before dipping her hand to bury her face in Weiss’s neck. She stays there for a long beat, exhales slow, inhales, like she’s drinking her in.

“I’ve missed you.” Her words are hot against Weiss’s skin, a damp buzz against her pulse point, setting her shivering.

Leda slides two glasses down the counter, and Ruby pulls away reluctantly; a tall, frosted glass of water for Ruby, another tequila sunrise for Weiss. Ruby watches with some amusement as Weiss takes a sip.

“How many is that for you?”

Weiss flaps a dismissive hand. Then, pausing. “I lost count.”

The buzz has spread to her head now, a pleasant warmth heating her cheeks, pulsing low in her stomach, resting on a heavy tongue. She turns to Ruby and startles because she’s right _there_ looking battle-worn and tall and so _good_ and why aren’t they in bed, like, right now.

For a moment she forgets the game, forgets her supposed annoyance, and reaches out a hand, tangling it in Ruby’s sleeve. “Why aren’t you kissing me?” she murmurs.

Ruby sets her glass on the bar, cups Weiss’s jaw with her hand. Her fingertips are frigid against Weiss’s temple from the icy glass, but her palm is warm. Ruby moves in, eyes half-lidded, their lips almost touching. Then: “I thought I wasn’t supposed to.”

She pulls away an instant before the kiss, just as Weiss starts to lean in, leaving her slack jawed and red cheeked. Ruby stifles a laugh, eyes squinted, impish. “I’ll see you around, stranger.”

She starts across the bar toward Yang and Blake, paying little mind to Weiss’s sputtering behind her. Weiss scrambles off her stool, taking a second to orient herself—blinking through the alcohol induced head rush as her feet hit the ground. She starts after Ruby, catching her in three long strides, grabbing at her uninjured wrist.

Ruby tilts her head to look down at her. “Can I help you?”

Weiss arches to tip toe, smothering her smug smile with a kiss. Ruby folds Weiss against her, free arm around her waist, bending down until their mouths press hard. It’s an utterly inappropriate kiss for a public bar, open mouthed and wet, Ruby swallowing Weiss’s moan, her fingers dimpling the skin of Weiss’s back. Somewhere, in the cold Atlas earth behind the manor, Jacques Schnee is rolling in his grave.

Across the bar, Yang yells: “Get a room.”

Blake, face in her palm, echoes. “For the love of God, please.”

They break apart, Weiss breathing hard, Ruby’s eyes wide, pupils blown, flooding her silver iris dark.

“A room doesn’t sound like a bad idea.” Ruby says, voice strangled. “I want to take you home.”

“Your hand—” Weiss starts, stroking a careful touch along the sling.

Ruby grins. “I don’t need them.”

Weiss can feel herself pink all the way to the tips of her ears. She sighs, breathy. “Oh my.”

Tugging Ruby back to the bar she drops a wad of bills on the counter while Ruby scoops her belongings back over her shoulder. She waves at Leda, enough awareness to be embarrassed.

Leda just laughs. “Be safe you two.”

They fall out the bar door together into the cool Vale night. Ruby pauses at the threshold to pull Weiss into a kiss, messy, catching her on the chin. Weiss smiles, opening her eyes just to be sure Ruby is really there, solid and warm against her, clumsy fingers cupping her jaw.

Weiss splays a hand over Ruby’s chest, just above the scoop neck of her corset, cupping her heartbeat in an open palm. The world around her is dull with tequila and late summer chill, but Ruby’s aura, her smile, is sharp, in focus.

Weiss counts her heartbeats, just to be sure. “I missed you,” she whispers, confessional, quiet.

Ruby leans down, stealing another kiss, on her mouth this time, only answering after she pulls away. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> maybe the real friends were the girlfriends we made along the way yknow
> 
> also, not to be that person and reference a movie from 2013 that no one wanted to be reminded of but [this](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/AcyZax2bQdunlgW2-5eBCOOQEeerdLAhed6As0Y8kipPhnM_H4re7Ms/) is absolutely what i was picturing for rubys outift pls forgive me. as always you can find me on tumblr at [nevervalentines](http://nevervalentines.tumblr.com)


End file.
